


Come Back to Me

by RuminantMonk



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-03-29 05:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3884911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuminantMonk/pseuds/RuminantMonk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let me tell you a ghost story about three people who loved each other and how they lost their way.</p><p>
  <i>But regret cannot be outrun no matter how hard she tries.  She can deny and deny it, but the echoes of her mistakes always seem to find her wherever she goes.  Asami sees Korra everywhere, in everything—both the tangible and intangible haunted by a blue-eyed ghost, a love precious and rare that she so willfully abandoned.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Korra

Blue all around me. Water.  I float, cannot sink.  There is little light here, like a lake locked below a glacier, starved of the sun. I look up and find that I am wrong. Above me, gold ripples on the surface with every gentle lap and wave. 

 

There is a voice calling to me, a sound thick and murky, slowed and waterlogged, losing volume as it travels toward me.  I cannot make out the words, if there are even any.

 

The voice rings out again, sends out circlets of quivering gold.  Again, clearer this time.  And though I recognize the desperation, I can’t help but marvel at the beauty the words send through the water in trying to reach me.

 

I’ve stopped wondering if my sufferings mean anything.  If they are meaningful.  Once, every struggle, every pain meant something.  But I can’t tell anymore, not with the mounting frequency at which I find myself battered and bruised.  I have no answers for what any of this means, but I do know this: pain is pain.

 

After a while, you waste less breath asking why and spend more time sewing broken skin and spreading salve.  After a while, recovering turns into habit and muscle memory takes the place of pride to pull you back up on your feet.  After a while, you learn to accept that this is your life.

 

The voice. It sounds like a name. Someone is calling for me.

 

Like pain, love is love. But unlike pain, love is also many other things.  It does not bring meaning to my suffering, does nothing to lessen or define the pain.

 

But I am a simple woman and I want few things.  I ask the world of nothing even though it asks everything of me.  This is just how things are and I do not question them. I am a simple woman and I do not ask much of this love.  Only that it stay with me.  I want for nothing so long as I have this.

 

My name, it is my name.  Waterlogged and drowning, but still: my name.  

 

So long as I love her, I can endure new wounds.  I draw strength from our love and the world appears more bearable for it.

 

It is the only thing that stops me from staying behind, cocooned here in the womb of my native element.  Here, where a demanding world cannot reach me to plague me with needs and desires.

 

And why would I trade this soothing blue for blinding white light?  I could stay here, lulled into sleep for eternity.  But tranquility breeds loneliness and here in the quiet, I am very alone.  

 

The voice grows louder.  I hear her pleading, I hear my name.  

 

All I have to do is touch the watery ceiling. To cross back over and leave this place of peace behind.  I know what waits for me on the other side: it is pain.

 

With her, it is so easy.  With her, my life feels like my own. 

 

I reach out, my arm stretched long and far, hand grasping into the shimmering blue gold.

 

My fingers break the surface.

 

My love is fierce and I will fight for it.

 

I can hear her voice now, loud and clear and full of life:

 

_Come back. Come back to me._


	2. Half

Asami Sato has two recurring dreams. Both begin and end in death.

One: she watches her mother die.  The colors that dominate this dream are red and orange.  Hot colors, colors that burn.  And black.  A color forged in heat.  Black smoking and singed.  Burning black hair, the acrid smell filling her lungs with smoke and death.  The stench of a life so cruelly snuffed.  Her mother deserved a more dignified death.  But what is dignity in the face of death?

Two: she watches her father die.  The dominant colors of this dream aren’t really colors at all: ice, clear and metal, shining.  Cold textures.  A gleaming surface, unflinching, hard, and smooth.  Fitting that her father died crushed under the very materials he loved so much.  Materials and designs that defined him in death as much as in life.  Except, that last design was of his daughter’s making, not his.  A fitting coffin—his legacy writ by blood both ways.

There was a third dream. She hasn’t had it in a while, but she’s dreamt it so many times she can recall it like a real memory. And in some ways, it was real and it was a memory, just with a slightly different outcome.  In that dream, _she_ was the one being crushed in the coffin, metal groaning and glass breaking all around her, the mangled machine quickly caving in.  And all the while her father’s face hovering above her, watching his only child's body bleed out and go limp.  It was the look on his face that haunted her most of all: cold indifference, observing her death as though she were just another one of his inventions to be tested and disposed.

Asami is grateful she is no longer haunted by the third dream, but its replacement is no better.  Just one face switched out for another, covered by identical steel shrouds and connected by a thin red thread that spells out their shared surname, dripping with blood.

Asami Sato has two recurring dreams.  Both leave her awake and gasping in the quiet of night, cold sweat beading on her brow.  It always takes a moment for her to remember where she is.

Korra helps.  Instantly roused by her midnight distress, Korra holds her and asks her which dream it was this time, pulls her close and murmurs into her ear:   _That’s over now. You’re right here. I’m here with you. It’s over now and everything is okay._

Asami believes her because she has to.  If she allows herself no other truths, she leaves no room for fear.  So, in the darkness, she clings to these words.

 

 

\--

 

 

When Korra comes to, she sees four crouched figures in white.  The figures rise slowly to their feet and Korra sees that the white garments they wear are medical scrubs.  Eight hands, gloved and sterile, pull up a crumpled woman from the floor and hold her steady by her shoulders.  The woman has green eyes.  The woman is her lover.

Asami speaks her name in a hoarse voice.  Korra can barely hear her.

When Korra opens her mouth to respond, Asami’s name stays lodged in her throat, voice catching on cords like sandpaper scraping against wood.

Then she becomes aware of the soft, cottony weight around her neck and the gurney under her back.  A sharp hot pain makes itself known at the base of her throat, a little to the right.  The pain splinters deep when she tries to swallow.

Korra remembers now. 

Panic in the town square.  Silver metal flying and bodies collapsing, blood pooling on cobblestone.  A single, mirrored shard whistling through the air.  Her blind spot.  Pain gurgling thick in her throat.  Metal wedged deep.  Her hand clapped over a jagged tip.  A man in a green gas helmet, a man without a face.  The same man approaching her, metal blades floating above his palm. 

The last thing she remembers is Suyin slitting the man’s throat.

A warm hand touches her forearm and snaps her out of her reverie.  Korra glances down: a thin, clear tube is stabbed into the back of her hand.  Her eyes follow the tube from hand to wrist to arm until she’s left to stare at Asami’s pale fingers resting on her skin.

Korra looks up and locks eyes with Asami.  Sinks into the color green, a green that trembles wet with worry, its normally brilliant luster undercut with fear.

 

 

\--

 

 

Suyin Beifong pays the Avatar a visit just one week after her discharge from the hospital.  She’s mostly there to speak with Korra, so Asami ducks into their library shortly after she welcomes Su into their apartment. 

If she is being honest with herself, Asami is not happy to see her.

But Suyin does not stay for long and Asami catches her on her way out, bidding her a polite farewell.  As she leaves, Asami thinks she catches a glimmer of remorse in the other woman’s eyes.  By the time the door closes, she’s already forgotten.

Asami walks back to the sunlit living room and sits down next to Korra on the tufted leather couch.  Almost immediately, Korra scoots closer and leans her head on her shoulder.  Asami takes her into her arms and turns to kiss the crown of her head.  Korra sighs.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, for the most part.”

“What did Su want?”

Asami feels Korra tense under her grip.

“Not much.  Just the usual with the Earth Kingdom extremists and Empire loyalists.  It’s still kind of a mess over in Zaofu.”

“Even now?  It’s been over two years.”

“Yeah, even now.  We're trying to rethink how to more effectively dismantle the more extremist factions.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

Korra snuggles in closer.  “I hope so.” 

Asami threads her fingers through Korra’s hair.  The room is quiet and warm and she can hear Korra breathe softly against her shoulder.  Each exhale seeps through the fabric of her shirt, spreading warm onto her skin.  Peaceful as this moment is, something has been needling at Asami ever since Su stepped into their home. 

“Opal told me you pushed Su out of the way.”

“Oh?”

“Did you?”

A pause.  “I did, yeah.”

“Why?” 

Korra shrugs against her.  Asami pries herself away to look her in the face. 

“Korra, why do you think you’re so expendable?”

“What?  I don’t.  I mean, I’m not—”

“I just don’t understand.”

After a long pause, Korra says, “Su saved my life once.:

“And Kuvira saved your father, but that didn’t stop her from trying to kill you, trying to kill _all_ of us.”

She doesn’t have to say it for Korra to get her meaning.  Those last words are heavy with her father’s spectre.

“... that’s different.”

“Is it?  I don’t think so.”

“What is your point?” Korra asks, her voice raised.

“My point is that your credit is good, so why do you feel the need to keep spending?”

Korra throws up her hands.  “I don’t even know how to answer that.  What is that even supposed to—“  Before she can finish, her voice cracks.  Korra pauses to clear her throat, a thick, awful sort of sound.  Pain evident on her face, she swallows down with difficulty before speaking.

“Could we drop this?”  Korra’s voice has lowered to a whisper.  She rubs at the white gauze taped to her throat.  “The doctors said I shouldn’t strain my voice.”

Asami nods wordlessly.  She takes Korra’s hand in hers.

“Does it hurt?”

Korra squeezes back just a little.  Doesn’t meet her eyes.  “A little.”

Asami does not believe her.  By now, she’s learned that Korra’s threshold for pain is unusually high.  Just last week she remembers the doctor asking her to rank the severity of her pain: 1 for barely noticeable, 5 for disabling, and 10 for losing consciousness. 

After Korra gave him a number, he said: _“For the Avatar, we’ll round up two.”_

 

 

\--

 

 

A happy memory:

 

They are in bed together, naked and content, their responsibilities forgotten for just a few precious hours. It’s late in the afternoon and the sun streams in something beautiful, lazy golden light broken into slats by the wooden blinds that hang in the window.  Asami lays on her stomach as Korra’s fingers trace the shadows cast on her bare back.

Lips follow fingers and ticklish kisses trail down her spine.  Asami can’t contain her laughter.  She rolls over onto her back and loops her arms around Korra’s neck.

Blue, blue eyes look down at her so intently that Asami’s laughter dies down as quickly as it rose up.  The way Korra looks at her ... she'll never get used to it.  She reaches up to cup Korra’s cheek, thumb stroking lovingly over her skin.

“You make me so happy.”

Korra smiles and leans into her touch, eyes fluttering shut.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

 

 

\--

 

 

When does a dream turn into a nightmare?  When the farfetched becomes a possibility.  And possibility is but one small step away from reality.

Asami has a new nightmare.  She wakes up screaming.  Korra takes her by the shoulders and shakes her until the scream fades into a rasp.  Once she's calmed down, Korra smooths away the damp hair that sticks to her cold, clammy brow.

_Which dream was it this time?_

It was neither.  It was not a dream.

_You died._

Hands cup either side of Asami’s face.  Blue eyes beckoning.

_I’m not dead.  I’m not dying and I’m not going anywhere._

Asami wonders why Korra would lie to her.

Because Korra has already died once—Asami was there, watched it happen, watched her die high up in the mountains, so close to the sky.  What she’s never told Korra is that when the white light first faded from her eyes, she had wanted so badly to scream.  But she couldn’t scream back then, not with everyone there, not with Tonraq kneeling in the dirt, pleading and pleading at his only child.  Not when this loss would not just be her own, even if, for her, it was a brand new kind of loss, something she did not understand at first but quickly grew to recognize as the beginnings of deep love.

But Asami has since then earned her right to unhinged expressions of grief.  She wonders if Korra remembers her screams back at the hospital, if she’d even heard her at all while she lay on the hospital gurney, drowning and choking in her own blood. 

 _Come back to me_. _Come back._

And somehow, her words had reached her and Korra came back from the threshold of death.  But lately, Asami thinks herself a fool to believe her words could ever hope to hold any power over a life so unbridled.  Not when it is the same wildness that drew her to love Korra in the first place.

Korra is full of life.  Korra cannot be contained.  But Korra is also a liar, and Asami wonders why she would try shield her from the truth, guesses that this could be a lie that she also tells herself.

_I’m here.  As long as you’re here, I will be, too.  Just believe me._

Can she believe her?  Does Korra even believe herself?  Asami does not know, so she chooses to answer this lie with one of her own.

_Okay.  I do.  I’ll always be here, too._

 

 

\--

 

 

Another happy memory:

 

“Have you heard the one about Avatar Kyoshi’s lady love?”

“Mm,” Korra hums into Asami’s stomach, strong fingers sneaking under the hem of her sweater.  “Have you heard the one about Avatar Korra’s lady love?”

“Korra …”  Asami gasps, then laughs when Korra burrows her head under the fabric and mouths at the bare skin underneath.  “Hey!  Get out from under there.”

“Now why would I want to do that?”  Comically loud kisses follow.  Laughing, Asami struggles to pull away from Korra’s grasp before she yanks off the offending garment, disposing of the sweater over the side of the bed.

Korra’s hair is deliciously disheveled and mussed all over, a few strands sticking straight up from static.  Asami smooths away the shorter pieces that have fallen over Korra’s eyes.

“There.  Now are you less distracted?”

“Um, no.”  Mischievous blue eyes peer down at her cleavage.  “Strategy is not your strong suit,” she mumbles before pressing her face into dip of her throat, breathing in her scent.  “You were saying?”

“As I was _saying_ … Kyoshi had a lover.  A nomad.  A woman who traveled the world.”

“An air nomad?”

“No, she was a different kind of nomad.  Supposedly, she was a scholar of stone, a geologist from Ba Sing Se.”

“Was she an earthbender?”

“No," Asami says, holding a forefinger to Korra's lips to shush her.  "Anyway, since she traveled so much and Kyoshi herself was a busy woman, the two didn’t have much time to see each other.”

“Don’t we know how that is …”

“But they made it work somehow. Every year, at Kyoshi Island, they met at the start of autumn and the start of spring.  One whole month, twice a year, every year.”

“That’s not much time." 

“Maybe, but it was enough for them.  Anyhow, one spring, the nomad brought Kyoshi a gift.”

Asami leans over and pulls out an object from the night stand drawer.  She shows it to Korra.  It is a necklace: a small gold, coin-shaped charm strung on a braided leather plait.  Something is carved into it, a phrase.

With the charm nestled in palm, Asami traces the characters with the tip of her finger. 

“Strength that moves.”

She turns the disc over to reveal a stone face, the color of jade, also emblazoned with a set of characters.

“Strength unmoving,” Korra reads, peering at the charm.

Asami taps the edge of her nail against the milky green surface.  “Hard on one side.”  She flips it over.  “Soft on the other.”

Korra reaches over and turns the charm back over its stone face.  “What are those little marks around the edge?”

“Hold on a minute, I’m getting there,” Asami says, smiling at Korra’s observant eyes.  “So, they took turns wearing the necklace.  Kyoshi wore it first, with the gold side facing out.  And because of her numerous battles, the necklace would get nicked and scratched.  When they were reunited in the spring, her lover would burnish and rework the surface until it was smooth again.”

“It must be gold, then.  Gold is really soft.”

Asami nods.  “Then she handed it off to her lover.  And when her lover returned in the fall, Kyoshi earthbent a single tally to commemorate that year.”

Korra counts silently, mouthing out each consecutive number.  “Eleven.  Eleven years.” Asami watches Korra’s face fall, her smile disappearing slowly.

“Like a clock.  Except …”  Korra bites her lip, hesitating.  “It’s missing a mark.  It isn’t complete.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.  The way I see it, they have all the time in the world.”

With that, Asami places the relic into Korra’s hand, closes over it with both her own.

“Happy anniversary.”

A beautiful smile spreads across Korra’s face, her features softening in happiness. 

“You're giving this to me?  Asami, I don’t even know how you found this, but thank you …,” she breathes, her voice trailing off as she caresses the charm with her thumb.  Then she snaps back up.

“Watch—“

With the tip of her forefinger, Korra bends a tiny groove in the empty space between the first and eleventh marks.  Then, satisfied with her handiwork, she loops the necklace over her head.  "One year," she murmurs before bending down to kiss Asami, her lips tender and soft and strong.

When Korra kisses her like this, Asami feels like they have all the time in the world and not enough at all.  But she does not question it because being with Korra is one of the few things she cannot make sense of.  Past and future twined together in a single present moment, love flowing continuous like a river, from kiss to kiss to kiss.

 

 

\--

 

 

Avatar Kyoshi speaks to Korra in a dream:

 

 _Her name was Bahn and I loved her like no other.  
_ _Her name was Bahn and she loved the earth._

 _In our first autumn, she returned to me._  
_In our sixth autumn, she returned to me.  
_ _In our twelfth autumn, she did not return._

_I waited until the leaves turned red._  
_I waited until the leaves turned orange._  
_I waited until the leaves turned gold._  
_I waited still when the leaves turned brown.  
_ _I stopped waiting when the leaves fell down._

 _My love died in the desert, alone in the sand.  
_ _My love died in the desert with no one to hear her._

_And when I died, all my lives spoke to me.  
_ _And when I died, I did not die alone._

_I am here to tell you the Avatar never dies alone._

Avatar Korra speaks to Kyoshi in a dream:

_But I am alone.  I have lost every one of you._  
_Even now, I know that you are not here.  
_ _Even now, I know that I speak not to you, but to myself._

\--

 

 

Asami makes her decision when she realizes that what she wants is a normal life. 

Korra comes home one day to find Asami packing her belongings into a canvas duffle bag.  The door shuts behind her and Asami freezes.  She was not expecting her to be home so soon.

Korra hangs her keys on the hook by the door.

“Hey, you going somewhere and forget to tell me?”  She walks up to Asami and wraps her arms around her from behind.  “Last minute business trip?” 

Asami tenses in her hold.  “Not exactly.”  She removes Korra’s arms and turns to stuff the last of her clothes into the bag.

“What’s up?”

With her back still turned, Asami zips up the bag, still saying nothing.

Korra touches her arm.

“Hey,” she says softly.  “What’s going on?”

Again, she’s met with silence, but Asami finally turns to face her, her eyes meeting Korra’s just for a second before quickly looking away.

“You’ve been acting weird for weeks and you’ll barely let me touch you.  Asami, what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing, I’m just tired and stressed.”

“I know.  You’ve been coming home later and later these days, I was started to get worried,” Korra says.  “Are you swamped with work?  Are you planning on sleeping at the office tonight?”

“Yes,” Asami says, still avoiding her gaze.  “Sort of.  I just need a little space.  I need to get out of the house for a bit.”

Korra nods.  “Okay.  I understand. I know I’ve been home a lot more than usual because of my stupid neck.  I can go stay at Tenzin’s for a while if that helps.”

Asami shakes her head.  “No, that’s okay, this is just … temporary.”  Korra notes the guilty expression on her face and pulls her into a hug.

“Okay.  But I’m sorry if you've felt claustrophobic because of me,” she murmurs.  “How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know.”  Asami’s arms tighten around her, feels more like she’s clinging than holding.

Then Korra notices the duffel bag sitting on the couch behind them.  When she sees how full it is and how heavy it looks, her blood runs cold.

“… are you leaving me?”

When Asami doesn’t answer, Korra tries to disentangle herself from her arms.  Asami just hangs on even tighter.

“Asami, are you leaving me?”  She can’t hide her panic.

Then she hears it.  Barely a whisper, voice almost trembling: “I can’t do this anymore.”

Korra finally wrenches herself away.  “Are you serious?  I don’t understand.  You can’t be serious.”

Asami won’t look at her.

“Why?  I thought we were good.  Asami, tell me what’s wrong.  If you tell me what’s wrong, I can try to fix it.”

Asami shakes her head, still looking at the ground.

“Did I do something wrong?  Am I not giving you enough attention?  Is that what this is about?  If I was being selfish while I was recovering, I’m sorry.  I know I've been a bit needy, but I can stop.”

Asami shakes her head ‘no’ again.

“Then what is it?  Talk to me, please.  You can’t just blindside me like this and not tell me what’s wrong,” she pleads. Korra grabs her by the shoulders. “Will you please just fucking _talk to me?"_

“I can’t do this,” Asami repeats.

“Can’t do what?”

Finally, she raises her eyes to look at Korra.  “I can’t keep watching you almost die again and again.  I can’t handle it.”

A look of disbelief washes over Korra’s face.  She lets go of Asami’s shoulders and collapses onto the couch, her body hunched over, head buried in her hands.

“I can’t believe this.  I thought everything was okay.  More than okay.”

Asami joins her on the couch, her movements quiet and tentative. “I thought so, too,” she says truthfully.  “But I can’t.  All I can think are all the people who want to end your life.  They won’t stop and I can’t live knowing that someone will always try to take you away from me.”

“I thought you knew what you were getting into.  I can’t just be here for you.  I have to be here for the rest of the world, too.”  The words leave a bitter taste in her mouth.

“I know,” Asami whispers.  “That’s the problem.”

Korra whips around to face her. “So what do you want me to do?  Do you want me to stop being the Avatar?”

“No!  No.  I’d never ask that.  I’ve never asked that.  I _can’t_ ask that.”

“You’re right.  You can’t."

“That's ... part of the problem,” Asami says quietly.

Korra lets out a heavy, shaky breath.  “You’re always so convinced that I’m going to die.  You really must not have any faith in me.”

“No, that’s not it,” Asami says quickly, her voice and expression pained.  “It's everyone else that I don't have faith in.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that.”

“I’m sorry … but I want you to understand where I’m coming from.  Korra, I watched my mother die, I watched my father die … I don’t want to watch you die either.  It’s too much.  I can’t take it.  I have nightmares about it all the time.”

Korra’s features soften.  “I’m just afraid of losing you as you are of losing me.  But it doesn’t stop me from loving you.”

“I’m not like you.  I can’t live my life in a constant state of fear.”

“So then what’s your plan?  Build up armor against the rest of the world so no one can hurt you?  Shut everyone out so you’ll have fewer things to lose?”  Korra wrings her hands.  “It doesn’t make any sense.  How is that living?  How is that a life?”

“I know I’m being unfair, but I’m not strong enough to be with you.  I want a normal life, not one marked by a string of tragedies.”

“ _Normal_ ,” Korra scoffs.  “Don’t you think it’s a little late to be telling me this now?”

“I understand if you’re angry. This is my fault,” she says quietly.

“I’m not angry, I just …”  Korra takes her hand, squeezes it hard.  “Are you sure?  Do you really want to end this after all that we’ve built?  You’re a part of my life now.  I love you.  We’re happy.  We work.  Please don’t do this.”

“I love you, too.  I love you so much—too much—and that’s why I can’t keep doing this.’

“Let me get this straight.  You’re afraid of losing me, so you decide to get a headstart on that by leaving?  Which means you lose me either way.  Is that right?” 

“I guess so ... yes.”

“Honestly, Asami, what the fuck kind of logic is that?” Korra asks, incredulous.  “I mean, really, how can someone so brilliant be so fucking _stupid?_ ”

Asami pries her hand out of Korra’s grip and looks away, chin trembling.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean that at all.”

“It’s okay.  You're right to be angry.”  Asami stands up and Korra follows.  She grabs her hand once more.

“Could you at least give me a chance to work things out?  I love you.  Please.”

Heat prickles behind her eyes.  “Korra, I love you, too, but there’s just too much … I’m not capable of dealing with everything that comes with it.”

Tears are shining in Korra’s blue eyes. “So you’re saying loving me isn’t worth it.”

“I—I don’t know.”

Korra’s face crumples and a strangled sob spills from her throat.  “You can’t do this to me.  You’re the only person I feel safe with.  You’re the only one who can see me like this.”  Tears stream down her face.

“I’m sorry.”  Her own voice quavers and Asami feels a horrible sensation in her chest, like a knot winding and unwinding.  Hot tears leak from the corners of her eyes.   “I’m sorry,” she repeats.

“Don’t do this.  Please.  Everyone expects me to be strong all the time and you’re the only one who makes me feel like it’s okay to not be.  You’ve helped me understand that.  Please don’t take that away from me, _please._ ”

She can’t look at Korra, can’t see her like this.  When her own tears begin to flow, Asami hides her face with her hands.

“I’m not right for you.”

“Don’t tell me what’s right for me!”  Korra shouts.  “I know what’s right for me and you’re right for me. You always have been, you always will be, so—“  Her voice cracks sharp and high and for a moment, Korra looks pained.  She rubs at the stitched over scab on her neck and lowers her voice to just above a whisper.  “… so don’t fucking say that.”

Asami wipes at her face with the back of her hand and takes a deep, shaky breath.  “Fine. You’re not.”

“I’m not what?”

“You’re not right for me.”

Korra is stunned.  Recoils like she’s been slapped.

“Okay,” she says, her voice quiet. “It sounds like you’ve made up your mind.”  Korra turns and begins to walk toward the door.

“Korra, wait,” Asami says, catching her by the arm.  “I love you and I’ll always care about you.  Maybe after a while, when we’re both ready, we could—we could try to be friends.”

Korra smiles at her wistfully, eyes red and face still wet. “That’s a nice offer, but no.  I can’t just take a step back after everything we’ve been through.  I’m sorry.”

Asami nods.  “Okay.  I understand,” she says.  Tentatively, she leans forward and pulls her into a hug.  They stay standing like this for a while, wrapped in each other’s arms for what feels like an eternity and Asami takes this opportunity to memorize Korra’s scent.  She inhales deeply, almost greedily, knowing it's the last time Korra's essence will fill her lungs.  And even though it’s selfish of her, she can’t help but turn her head to steal away one last kiss.

Korra resists and turns her cheek.  “Don’t,” she whispers.  “It’ll just confuse things and I don’t want to waste anymore of your time begging you to stay.” 

Asami pulls away and is already left aching for the warmth Korra’s body.  When she looks up, fresh tears are forming once more in those blue eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Korra says.  “I have to go.  I can’t be here right now.  Not in our house.”

Then she turns her heel and walks away, leaving Asami to watch as she takes her last steps through the door and out of her life.

 

 

\--

 

 

Just days later, Asami learns that Avatar Korra has left Republic City.  Mako and Bolin tell her she’s gone to the Southern Water Tribe and also plans to travel to its sister city in the North Pole.  After this, her friends stop giving her updates on Korra’s whereabouts.  For this, she is grateful.

Still, news of the Avatar is hard to avoid and some mornings, Asami opens the papers to find big bold headlines that tell of Korra’s travels, her diplomatic excursions, and her toughest battles.  Asami reads these stories with an ache in her heart.

 

 

\--

 

 

Some days, Asami thinks about the newspaper clipping that sits in the box she’s stowed away in a closet.  The temptation to unearth this clipping eats away at her, but she thinks better of it and decides to leave it hidden out of sight. 

Because stashed in that box are other things she’d rather not see, isn’t ready to look at.  Gifts, souvenirs, and other objects of sentimental value gathered and stored away, out of sight and out of mind.  Opening that box would be tantamount to unleashing a torrent of memories she isn’t quite prepared to revisit—if Asami’s learned anything, it’s that memories cannot simply be willed away.  But she has learned to anticipate them, much like seeing a traffic sign from a distance and changing course to avoid it.

And seeing souvenirs from her past with Korra would hurt too much, even now, after all this time.  Even now, years after she made the decision to leave her.

Opening that box isn't an option because she’s too afraid to confront the possibility that maybe, just _maybe_ she made a mistake.  Because it’s too late to admit that now.  Too much time has passed for her to take it back.  The luxury of regret is something she cannot afford when there are no chances left to remedy the damage she wrought all those years ago. 

But regret cannot be outrun no matter how hard she tries.  She can deny and deny it, but the echoes of her mistakes always seem to find her wherever she goes.  Asami sees Korra everywhere, in everything—both the tangible and intangible haunted by a blue-eyed ghost, a love precious and rare that she so willfully abandoned.

 

 

\--

 

 

The next time she sees Korra, Asami is twenty-nine years old. 

When Korra steps into the office of Future Industries, Asami can barely recognize her.  At twenty-eight, the Avatar is a vision.

Brown hair, long and wild, plaited in a thick braid down her back.  Wavy tendrils that frame either side of her face.  Blue eyes fierce and burning like the hottest, purest fire.  Two scars: one spliced through her right eyebrow, the other thick and raised on the left side of her throat.  The skin of her bare arms and collarbones dusky and dark—darker than she remembers it being.  Freckles peppered across the bridge of her nose—Asami can practically smell the warmth of the hot sun that painted them.

When they see each other for the first time in five years, Asami can hardly breathe.  To her surprise, Korra simply smiles.  Warm and genuine, it is a smile Asami can easily recognize, one that could make her lose her footing back when they were both so, so young.

When their business meeting comes to a close and Korra politely takes her leave, Asami shuts the door and collapses against it, her heart palpitating and her eyes swimming. 

And though she cannot make sense of any of this, Asami is certain of one thing: she wants Korra back in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably will clean this up more today and tonight.


	3. Mako

Do you want to hear a ghost story?  I'd like to tell you one.  It's true because it happened to me. 

 

There was a girl who dragged a ghost with her everywhere she went.  It was no ordinary haunting: on her back, she carried the weight of a thousand old souls.  Wherever she went, they would go with her.  We were never alone, the two of us always hiding under the shroud of their collective shadow. 

 

One night she told me: _loving me means loving them. Can you do that?  Can you love us, all of us? Because I love you._

 

 _But I am but one man_ , I said.  H _ow will it ever be enough?_

 

Then one day, she told me:  _I am alone now.  And I feel at once lonely and free.  There is a new space inside my heart that had not been there before.  I am more capable,_ she said. _And because of it,_ _I can love more freely._

 

I told her I did not understand.  I should have been relieved, but I was frightened.  And when she saw the fear in my eyes, she left me.  Sought safety and love in the arms of another who could embrace her whole and cup gentle hands around the space of her heart, coax and stoke the growing fire within it.  

 

A more capable mortal up to the task.  I was not capable.

 

I understand now.  I have watched her face the world alone, beautiful with her eyes white and her arms powerful.  I have seen her tear the sky asunder not out of destruction, but out of love.  There is always room for light in this world and she alone is tasked with drawing it out from the darkest, coldest corners.

 

To love her means to love the world.  There is no order to it, I see that now. 

 

There is no comfort to this feeling.  It is a private task.  It is a daunting task, to love her, the kind of responsibility that changes color in the light.  When you are wrong, it takes shape as the heaviest of burdens.  When you are right, it appears as a gift.  

 

I have another ghost story to tell.  It’s true because it's happening to me—I am a haunted man.  There is a shadow that follows me wherever I go.  I walk and walk and walk to keep him trailing after me, keep him moving, keep him at bay.  I can hardly sleep at night.  The ghost is eager, eager to breathe air into my chest and extinguish the tiny flame that lays unprotected in the deepest chamber of my heart.  I awake to it flickering helplessly like a butterfly beating its wings in the throes of death. 

 

This spectre, he wears my face like a shadow wears darkness.  The ghost insists he is not dead, but I know better—he brings death wherever he goes, breathing selfish air that smells of cowardice and nothing like life.  He is who I used to be, when I first loved and failed her. 

 

To love the world is to love her.  I would die for the world.  Because to die for the world is to die for her.  

 


End file.
